It's been...a while, but schedules worked out (it happens) and we were able to have a game session again. I think we're mostly back on track (although I probably/hopefully won't be holding the Samhain game on or near October 31). We also had a new player who was interested, a well-rounded human mage named Dealer.
This run was created using part of the Lughnasad/Lughnasadh season for a feeling (fearing the harvest wouldn't be enough for winter), and using The Sting as my influence (I also used Heat, Cowboy Bebop, and Jem in other sessions). It looks like I wrote this session up back in September, so even reading over my notes didn't quite get me back on track. I forgot about half of what I had planned, wasn't at the top of my game anyway, and the game was a bit of a let-down. It happens. Mostly, we didn't get to have enough problems to really use the edge -> flashback/retroactive set-up thing I
stole from The Sting came up with, because I didn't play to Ares being overwhelming (and I still think it would come across too railroady) I'll include my full notes at the end; hopefully someone can steal something useful out of them.
On the upside, we were able to Skype in our player who left the country (Roll20 froze for them, then for me, then wouldn't let me back in, then got replaced with Skype), and my old 42" TV makes a good monitor to throw maps onto. The players were able to decide routes in and out ahead of time, and we could use floor plans to illustrate where they were.
August, 2072:
[ Spoiler ]
(OOC: This run is supposed to involve you going up against superior opposition and winning though better planning. In this case, superior physically; better at violence. However, that does mean that having violence early in the run most likely results in TPK or arrest for your crimes.)
It sounds like you're going to need a new fixer; your old one is busy right now. But Freddy has a name, address, and recommendation for you (from someone else, he's not having this tracked back to him). The name and address of the new fixer in town who has been hiring a lot of the former LS employees, part of the reason it's been tough to get jobs. And as you know, runners who are new in town like you (let's pretend - Freddy has given you a cover story that you were sent here by one of the new fixer's contacts in another city) will usually do the first job for cheap to start building a reputation. What fixer doesn't want a larger cut? If you're planning on offloading anything KE is tracking, make sure not to let him know he's actually buying evidence. Maybe you're just upgrading, or pawning extras to pay for your move? Oh, and remind me again which city you're leaving, and why. Something just "your fault" enough to be believable, but not so much that you fail your job interview.
You're going to kill two birds with one stone. You need to get hired, get a recording of him hiring you (audio and visual), hit KE headquarters for data to humiliate them publicly, and release the information about them and the fixer who hired you. If you can get a recording of him claiming any other jobs, we can get those pinned on him as well. Sure, KE will be fragging furious, but once the data's out there, they hopefully have less reason to come after you. Besides, they'll have the name and a picture of the fixer. With any luck, they'll take care of him before he can find you (or he'll have to hide), and be too busy with him to worry about you. Leaning more towards discretion and less towards destruction will help with that.
The best part is, your fixer is paying for any moderately reasonable costs. Go all out, as long as nothing can be traced back. He also recommends keeping Sam bottled up until violence is needed (and if it isn't, all the better). Hopefully you can manage to get paid by the new fixer as well.
This is just the main offices for Knight Errant in Seattle. Lone Star still owns the jails and the courts, but they're willing to show KE up anytime they can. You know KE is part of Ares, so any Ares citizen is likely to be armed, and have access to the best (hopefully less-lethal) armaments. You know the main office will be overwhelmingly full of officers (and office workers) BEFORE you set off alarms; worse after. So don't do that. And while they are not as good at matrix/magical security as physical, it's because they're *very* good at physical security. As part of Ares, everything at KE is run like a military campaign. Have your story straight, disguises on, top up your ammo, and have some plans set before you go in.
To cut down on planning time this run (although planning ahead is also encouraged), you can spend a point of edge to retroactively have set something up as part of the plan (with a skill/contact roll to see how successful it is). Like in Ocean's 11 [my players pointed out that was Ocean's 12, so at least they knew what I meant] when they were all caught and arrested, but it turned out it was George Clooney's wife and they planned that all along. Just plan for big things, and let the details or oversights get caught with edge expenditures. Also, working in your favor: security is tight, so KE knows nobody would be dumb enough to attack. Make sure they don't know you're there until you're ready to leave.
As shadowrunners, you know the likelihood of being followed after the run is mostly based on ROI for the corp. Is it going to cost more to find the runners than whatever they have on them is worth? Ditch the goods or paydata quickly, and they lose a reason to come after you. If you kill their personnel, destroy property, or humiliate them publicly, the value of those may be taken into account as well. The damage done by a rocket or demo charge can easily be worth sending a citymaster full of trained SWAT after you. Ares isn't known for need for revenge, and Knight Errant's need to maintain a good image will help with that. However, their motto is Greek for "overwhelming, insatiable in battle, destructive, and man-slaughtering."
The team met with their new fixer, to prove themselves for future jobs (not to get him murdered by Ares). As a team new to Seattle (wink), they
had to trade in their old weapons to afford new Ares-branded ones that wouldn't raise eyebrows on the run (brilliant bit of planning by Sam's player - pawn off the evidence of their previous runs on the guy they're setting up). The fixer is good at keeping distant from the action so he can keep plausible deniability of the runs he hires out (also, the dice worked in his favor), so the team wasn't able to get him to admit to hiring out other runs. They were able to get video and audio of him hiring them with Sam's eye and ear recorders. They did know of a nearby bar that Lone Star officers used to hang out at, so they decided to see if former officers operating as runners still hung out there. At the bar, they found some of the new runners, but they weren't willing to admit much until the team name dropped the fixer. With enough evidence in hand, the team gets ready for the actual run.
The team did some knowledge checks about the situation. Anyone with closely-related knowledge skills rolled below average, and everyone taking large penalties for having tangent-to-a-tangent knowledge skills rolled well, all coming out with a similar amount of knowledge (public knowledge, plus some rumors/implied information). Those results are the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th lines of the GM notes at the bottom, so I neither withheld anything or had to make/look anything else up.
Dealer, the mage that joined the team for this run (and maybe future runs), convinced KE he got transferred to the new offices as a janitor. Less work to get in than posing as a cop, and good cover to scout out the building. He was assigned a biomonitor/tracker (so the players knew I planned on using them and the KE employees without me having non-sequitur perception checks). There are two entrances to the building: the main entrance, which is the only entrance for walk-ins, and the vehicle entrance around the back, requiring a badge to enter. After weighing more people but easier to blend in (daytime) vs fewer people but more suspicion (night time), the team decided to go in at night, because that's what they always do. The new mage lets the team get in with a stolen dump truck, during the normal scheduled time. Because they took over an office building, KE's new offices are built for convenience, not security. The elevators can go to any floor, as long as you have the proper permissions, or a decker who can outsmart the elevator computer. [This was probably my biggest mistake, and allowed the run to be short-circuited. The alternative, as the players pointed out, was the old Doom-style red key to get the blue key minigame. I guess I should have gone with the entertainingly bad choice, which is how I usually live my life.]
The team, pushing the janitor cart with their parachutes, went to the middle of the building above the dispatch offices, but below the management area, to find an empty cubicle for Plex (decker) to connect. Plex managed to grab one piece of evidence before security made their rounds, the the team heard them coming up the stairs and were prepared/pretending to be a cleaning crew. Rolling randomly, they came to the two worst liars on the team, and demanded to know what they were doing. [I should have used guards with dogs; I could tell the game was near the end and Phobos and Deimos would have been fun.] They explained their way out of it just as Sam's special coffee (spiked with one of the drugged darts, chosen randomly, and containing Laes) was ready. Sam is a good enough face to convince them to drink, and they passed out shortly thereafter. They decided they had enough to pin on KE, and got out before anyone came to check on the biomonitors.
Plex got the elevator to take them to the roof, but failed to get the doors to open without an alarm. Luckily, they brought a troll, and the doors were convinced to open. Trinket-Jammer used shape metal to seal the doors to the stairway while Boost (the troll) broke the elevator to slow down the security guards. Dealer's pet fire elemental was ready to set off all of the ammunition in the anti-air flak cannons on the roof, while Plex got ready to fly the helicopter Dealer had spent edge to have waiting for their escape. They all pack in and take off as the searchlight from a KE helicopter shows up at the building demanding they land. [Sam's player also suggested helicopters, or a helicopter dog fight] Runners definetly like following instructions, especially when they're fleeing the scene of the crime, so...flak cannon ammo explodes, building starts on fire, a lightning bolt hits the enemy helicopter (electrical attacks are not good for auto-pilot vehicles, but helicopters can recover and land safely), they aim the helicopter at the DOT building (it
was their transportation) and parachute out. Then they notice the police gathering below them to arrest them when they land their parachutes. A few overcast stunballs later, Plex's remotely-ordered van pulls up, and everyone still standing realizes how the arrest is going to go. Knowing the police cars are massively faster than the van, they go hide instead of leading KE to the fixer. Instead, they sell the paydata to some Pirate Trid contacts and mail a datachip with the video of the fixer to KE...after editing the already damning evidence to include an order to cause mayhem with the helicopter, and almost failing the edit test even with edge.
GM Notes:
[ Spoiler ]
Use 999 3rd Avenue, Downtown (Wells Fargo building) for the new KE offices, with the Shadowrun map overlay. They have had a few months to get moved in, but they aren't completely upgraded.
Knight Errant has suppressed some anti-administration demonstrations, and the Brackhaven spin-machine has used the incidents as “proof” that metahuman = poor, violent, and dangerous, especially when it comes to orks, trolls, and changelings, although elves and dwarfs tend to get lumped in there, too.
KE has used their history as a security company as part of their image of "making things safe." This is especially true with their PR attempts after deadly clashes in the Ork Underground.
Drone-based cameras have always shown protestors starting the violence. Even when protest organizers have taken pains to make sure nobody in the group was armed before the event. (totally not stolen from reality)
The building is fairly tall, with a civilian (semi-public) area on the ground floor. The courts, prison, etc. are separate. This building is mostly administration.
The central location serves several purposes: backing up and receiving back-up from other municipal buildings in the area (power protects other power), staying within signal range of the other district offices, and controlling cameras and drones in large areas of the metroplex.
The roof is a convenient place to leave the building from, but there may be some difficulties landing. You need to submit a flight plan to Metroplex Air Control, and may be shot down/will be detained if you veer from the course (KE is in charge of that). And you can't get a flight path to within 30 meters of a building without permission from the owner, which Ares is "unlikely" to provide.
Ares: His sons Phobos (Fear) and Deimos (Terror) and his lover, or sister, Enyo (Discord) accompanied him on his war chariot. Enyalios is son who receives puppy sacrifices from Spartans.
Before you make it inside, Knight Errant makes their show of force. The building has armed guards posted outside, and drones patrolling the area, in addition to those coming and going. Newly-installed speakers blaring the KE version of the Ares corporate anthem and the recently planted Ares and KE flags give more of an image of an occupying force in Seattle than a business who took over a contract from another business.
There are two entrances to the building: the main entrance, which is the only entrance for walk-ins, and the vehicle entrance around the back, requiring a badge to enter.
The main entrance is staffed by desk attendants in light/dark blue camo patterns, sitting in desks behind glass, protected by small ceiling turrets (Ares Maginot model V - won't shoot into the area the guards normally stand in) and Ares Sentinel Rail Turrets. The turrets are backed up by the armed/armored guards standing watch, dressed all in black. Trid screens on the walls play through images of Citymasters crushing riots during the Night of Rage, a Firewatch team killing bugs in Chicago, the Ares team annihilating an opposing emplacement during a Desert Wars demonstration, and similar images to reinforce the idea that they are the best in the world at violence.
Below the main floor are firing ranges, vehicle storage, a cafeteria, and barracks. The building was taken over, so it is built for less security than Ares would normally like, and some amount of construction is being carried out still. The elevators go to the top and bottom of the building, although access is restricted depending on your security clearance.
2 barghests named Phobos and Deimos.
A security mage (Enyalios) with a dog beast spirit